OMAS 360 Vintage Red

A fountain pen is fascinating.

While a fountain pen may look very straight forward, a "tube" with a nib stuck on the end, it is actually complex.

The fountain pen is composed of a multiple of parts. All which have to fit together perfectly. This is no small feat. As the pen is held in the hand, there is a real precise tactile test to meet.

That is one of the things you notice between an expensive and lower-price point pen. The way the parts fit together.

So not only is a fountain pen interesting because of the multiple parts, but is is different from a disposable ball point pen in that you keep it for some time.

First of all, it becomes "your" pen. You carry it around with you. It becomes one of your possessions. It is not use a piece of plastic that is tossed when no longer needed.

Second, the whole writing experience boils down to how the pen sits in your hand, how the nib and the ink flows across the paper.

The pen has made quite the evolution. Starting as a quill. Then progressing to steel nibs attached to sticks and then dipped in ink and dipped as additional ink was needed. Then the pen progresses to those that actually hold their own ink supply. They become portable

For the pen to hold its own ink was not easy. The first pens had a range of problems. Getting the ink to flow our in a controlled way was one of the primary challenges.

In 1870 Lewis Edson Waterman invented the now famous system ink system to control the flow of ink from the ink chamber to the nib. He developed a three-channel feed that would allow air to travel up into the ink chamber, releasing the vacuum and allowing ink to flow, and not gush out.

Pens went through some innovations. At one time the only way to get the ink into the pen was to use an eyedropper. Then the pens progressed so that the ink would be drawn up into the pen body through the nib.

Various ink filling mechanisms came along all basically pushing air our of a chamber to create a vacuum to pull the ink into the chamber. Eventually, even a cartridge to hold ink was invented.

What we have today are well engineered fountain pens which, overall, need only a reasonable amount of care to provide a lasting writing experience for the owner.

 

The links under "More..." provide further information about fountain pens.

 

Nibs

The nib is probably the most important defining feature of a fountain pen. It is what our eye immediately goes to. It defines the writing experience.

While I still hold ink high on the list of what makes the writing experience, the nib ranks higher as ink brands and quality can vary, but the nib is that permanent part of the pen that is defines how the pen writes.

More information on the fountain pen nib is found at the following page/link:

A number of years ago Ludwig Tan sent me his article on grinding nibs, with permission to use it on my site.

It is a detailed article, and I receive regular feedback on how informative the piece is, however, I would caution. nib grinding is an art. It requires skilled perfection.

 

 

In terms of care and maintenance, there is one golden rule I suggest you follow:

Keep the ink in your pen fresh. If you leave it for a long period of time unused, flush out the ink, use normal water to draw and expel water to wash/flush out the ink feed system.

That probably is one of the best things you can do on a regular basis to keep your fountain pen functioning at a top notch level.

If you use cartridges, then remove the cartridge and hold the nib section of the pen under running water to flush the feed out.

More information ...

My visits with pen manufacturers include: